


Something Called The Politics of Lonely

by boychickenboy



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Hurt/Comfort, Indepth medication mention, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Illness, Panic Attacks, Protective!Shane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 02:04:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15450981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boychickenboy/pseuds/boychickenboy
Summary: Ryan and Shane find themselves at the apex of their investigation, the beginning of a night spent in the haunted house. Ryan seems more rattled than usual and Shane makes his best attempts to help.





	Something Called The Politics of Lonely

**Author's Note:**

> Hi so apparently the only fucking fics I can ever actually finish are BFU so that's cool and fun. I wrote this in about an hour and only edited it a few times so I'm not sure how good it is but I like it!!
> 
> DISCLAIMER/CW: There's a lot of talk about having a severe anxiety disorder and medication for anxiety disorders!! I don't know a whole lot about medicating and getting therapy for severe anxiety disorders so I apologize if there are some inaccuracies!  
> ALSO there's a part where Ryan insinuates that receiving romantic affection helps his anxiety BUT I DO NOT FEEL THIS WAY!!!! Anxiety and other mental illnesses do not get cured when someone kisses you and this bit was sort of to poke fun at that idea but I realized that it may come off more ignorant than anything so I wanted to say something here!!! Sorry if it upsets anyone!!
> 
> This fic is named from and very vaguely inspired by the song (Hospital Vespers) by The Weakerthans
> 
> Follow me on tumblr n message me to talk about BFU if u want! @boychickenboy.tumblr.com

The house was too quiet. Ryan thought that the silence would have eased his nerves, but something about it felt expansive in a way that scared him even more than a random creak or whisper would. Shane was fiddling with some equipment, standing in the middle of the room. His face was screwed up in concentration and Ryan held onto that normalcy with a desperation that he hadn’t felt since the Sallie house.

 

When Shane looked up, it took a moment for him to focus on Ryan’s face in the darkness. He must have noticed the quaking and the wide eyes - a trademark for Ryan now after so many episodes of doing this exact thing. He smiled crookedly and it was half concern, half amusement. Ryan tried not to feel ashamed but failed.

 

The truth is that the dosage of Ryan’s anxiety medication had recently been adjusted. He thought that the amount he was already taking had been working, but his psychiatrist noted that too much comfort would have been a negative for him, in the long run. If he depended on the dosage he was taking, then the actual issue of his anxiety would never actually go away. He disagreed, vehemently, but apparently mental health professionals knew better than him when it came to his own brain. He also did not have a prescription pad and his psychiatrist did. So he was taking nearly half of what he’d been taking before.

 

It was hell.

 

He felt like he did when he was a kid. Everything building up into this never ending crescendo of panic. He felt like, for the sake of his heart, he should have protested the dosage change more than he had, but it was already done. He’d been taking this dosage for almost a week now. It wasn’t helping anything, and he knew that without it at all things would be much worse - his mind grabbed at memories of staying locked in his apartment for days, being fired from jobs for no-call-no-showing, refusing to eat anything he didn’t make himself until he literally ran out of food. He recalled that as the true hell, but this didn’t feel much better.

 

Sure, he was out, he was filming, he was interacting with people, but every moment he spent conscious was agony. He overthought every action he took, everything that happened around him felt magnitudes more intense. He saw everything through a painfully sharp, analytical lens and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

 

And it was so  _ fucking quiet _ .

 

He could feel his breath quicken and he subtly used a breathing technique that his therapist had taught him that he wasn’t completely convinced worked, but at least he was focused on that and not on how easily all of this could fall apart.

 

“Ryan?”

 

Shane’s voice broke his concentration and when he looked up, Shane was closer than before and that half-amused-half-concerned look had melted into full-concern and Shane ducked a little to look at Ryan dead on.

 

“Are you good, bud?” He asked, hesitating before reaching out to place a hand on Ryan’s shoulder.

 

Here was the other thing - his anxiety made being around Shane one hundred times worse. On his last med dosage he could easily ignore all of the horrible thoughts about how disgusting he was for finding Shane attractive, how he would ruin everything if Shane ever found out, how he was a coward for never saying anything, how Shane wasn’t even into guys and therefore would never be into him - and he likely still wouldn’t, even if he was into guys. But now… all of those thoughts came rushing back every time Shane so much as blinked at him.

 

The touch, understandably, made him flinch.

 

Shane frowned but removed his hand, looking at it for a moment before looking back at Ryan.

 

“We can go if you’re getting too spooked.” He said, hushed and only a little mocking. Part of Ryan knew that the tone was exclusively for the cameras, but another part of him just felt burned.

 

“No.” Ryan choked out and he sounded  _ wrecked _ . “No, we should stay. See the night out. It’s been pretty quiet all day, I’d like to get some solid EVPs or something.” And part of that was the truth, for the sake of the show, but the other part was that he desperately did not want an EVP, and he desperately wanted to leave.

 

Shane nodded but he still cast a look or two at Ryan as he turned away to shine his flashlight about the room that they would be staying in for the night.

 

They had finished with most of the investigation and the rest of the crew had left for the night. There had been some creaks and some moments earlier in the night where Ryan leapt into the air at a gentle breeze through the window that would look good on camera, but for the most part nothing had happened. He knew they needed these extra hours to at least make it to the fifteen minute mark during editing, even if nothing happened.

 

It was strange, because objectively he knew that this episode would likely be pretty boring. No ghost noises or jump scares that would have been amplified by eery music and Ryan was so overcome half the time that he wasn’t completely in the banter. He was spending far too long overanalyzing everything that came out of Shane’s mouth so that every response took an uncomfortable few, empty seconds. It was going to be a pain to edit and he felt bad for his team. Subjectively, though, Ryan had spent the last several hours completely terrified out of his mind and he wasn’t sure if a place had affected him this much in several seasons. He was having a hard time pulling something out to help the episode because to him, nothing could be scarier than this.

 

He was going to have to have a meeting with his psychiatrist after this. If he was going to be like this all of the time then his career was going to suffer for it.

 

After some dithering, Shane noting the grime, or an out-of-place bit of graffiti - Ryan could tell he was scraping to make this footage even somewhat entertaining - they found a decent place to on the floor to set up camp.

 

As soon as Ryan’s sleeping bag hit the floor, a loud, sharp knock sounded from the corner of the room.

 

Both he and Shane swung towards it, and then Ryan was frozen.

 

It was nothing - of course it was nothing, what else could it have been? - but the images that poured into his head of the potentials overwhelmed him and he could feel his whole body shaking with an inevitable panic attack. He racked his brain for anything that could help ebb away this feeling until he noticed the static camera in the corner of the room and interrupted Shane’s laughter and gentle taunting to point at it.

 

“Hey, could you m-maybe stand there? For a minute?” He asked and his voice was shaking and Shane’s brows furrowed, but he must have noticed the beads of sweat on Ryan’s forehead and the deadly seriousness of his tone.

 

Wordlessly, Shane lumbered over towards the camera and blocked its view of where Ryan stood and immediately, Ryan sank to his knees, his entire body shaking violently. To the untrained eye, one might assume he was seizing, but his breath was heaving and his eyes were open wide as they stared at the floor and he was keeping himself upright with his hands planted in front of him.

 

Quietly, he registered the beeping of a camera being shut off and sure but gentle steps crossing a wooden floor. He heard creaks of floorboards and the feeling of dust particles in the air moving around his face and his bare forearms, and then he felt a warmth on his back. He did not flinch away.

 

“Is it okay if I put my hand on your back?” Shane’s voice was so, so quiet, barely able to be heard over the ringing in Ryan’s ears. He nodded infinitesimally. Shane’s hand laid a bit heavier and he heard the scraping of shoes as Shane moved to sit beside him.

 

“It’s okay.” He heard and if he had been able to react normally, he might have rolled his eyes.

 

“Well, clearly, it’s not okay,” Shane amended as if he had read Ryan’s mind, “but hey, you’re alive. I’m here, and I’m not going to leave you. What just happened was that you put down your sleeping bag and the wind from it blew over one of those creepy wooden toys. That was all that happened. It wasn’t a ghost or a demon, it was just some wind. We can debate it all later when you look over the tapes, but right now know that it was just wind. Even if it was a ghost, I would never let it hurt you. But it wasn’t. A ghost, I mean.”

 

Ryan was listening intently to Shane’s voice, focusing on the warmth on his back and the presence at his side and as he started calming, he felt another pressure against the side of his head that he recognized from the steady puff of breath on his cheek as Shane’s forehead. When Shane spoke again, it was much closer and much softer.

 

“You know why you’ll always be okay in places like these, Bergara? It’s ‘cuz I’m here. Ol’ Shane would never let a ghost hurt’cha. I wouldn’t let anything hurt you. I’ll beat the shit out of a ghoul for you any old day.”

 

This startled a laugh out of Ryan and he felt like he was coming to his senses a little. Shane pulled his head away and Ryan wanted to bring him back, press their foreheads together and continue sharing the moment, but it seemed to be over.

 

“Thanks.” He said and his voice was harsh, but he sounded much steadier than before. When he could finally look over, Shane simply nodded, mouth set in a hard line and Ryan was on the odd post-panic euphoria that he didn’t even analyze what that might mean. “But you couldn’t do shit to the ghosts. You don’t even have a holy water gun.”

 

Shane’s face broke out into a grin, chuckling. “Now there’s the Bergara I know and love.” He said and there was something in his face that stuttered. Ryan frowned a little and the anxiety made him wonder if this was Shane’s weird way of playing with him, taunting him for how obvious he was about his crush. Miraculously, he was able to drop that thought and breathe through it.

 

The way that Shane had handled his panic attack had done wonders to calm him and he was finally able to look up and around him, chest swelling at the sudden serenity he felt, and nodded once, definitive.

 

“I wanna stay. See the night through.” He said after a beat. Shane lifted an eyebrow, glancing around at the dust motes and grimy furniture.

 

“Are you sure? I don’t think anyone would blame us for calling it off.” He said and Ryan didn’t miss how Shane was suddenly shouldering part of the responsibility and he appreciated it more than Shane could ever know.

 

“Yeah, I’m sure. I wanna show this place who’s boss.”

 

Shane let out an impressed “ _ ooh, hoo, hoo!” _ , standing and going to turn the camera back on. With Shane’s presence further away, the darkness did seem to creep in towards Ryan and only held off when he heard the beep of the camera and Shane voice saying, “what’s the point of these stupid high tech cameras if they shut off all on their own?”

 

He knew that Shane was both making an excuse for him and spicing up the episode just a little. He couldn’t even bring himself to care about faking results.

 

When Shane returned, Ryan noticed that he seemed to adjust his sleeping bag just a little bit closer and the shadows subsided. Ryan’s gut twisted a little upon realizing that it was Shane that was keeping his anxiety at bay. It was unfair of his anxiety to use one of the things that  _ gives _ him anxiety to make him  _ less _ anxious. Which, he realized, makes no sense. But neither do panic attacks, so there’s that.

 

He finally felt up to bantering and he and Shane made up for part of the missed moments of the episode, bickering back and forth about the probability of the house itself being haunted, (“ _ Nothing has happened, man, it’s just been silence and dust. _ ” “ _ If you could  _ feel _ the energy in here you would be eating those words. _ ” “ _ To be fair, I’m not  _ not _ feeling it on purpose. _ ” “ _ I think you are. _ ” “ _ Ryan, I want to feel it maybe more than you do. _ ”) and then they settle in to sleep. At some point during their modified nightly routine, Shane had scooted his sleeping bag flush against Ryan’s and it helped to feel that living, human presence against his side as he tucked his pillow under his head and tried to get comfortable.

 

It was then that his anxiety decided to rear its ugly head once again.

 

His mind began to pull at the moments that Shane had given him within the last hour. The gentle words, the reassurance, the promise of protection, the head pressed against head, the hand on his back. He began to pick them apart, piece by piece, and he started to put together a picture - a Frankensteinian amalgamation of half truths and wild leaps - of Shane full of pity and annoyance, finding his friend - or coworker, more like it -  yet again in a situation where he was rendered speechless at a little gust of wind. He shrank into himself as his anxiety scolded him for thinking, even for a second, that any of that might have been genuine. Shane just wanted to get this over with. He wanted to do his job, get his paycheck, and keep Ryan from having a full on freak-out when they could have been sleeping.

 

The snowball of anxieties continued to build rapidly and Ryan could feel the familiar faded quality that came over his wide-open vision that indicated a panic attack was forthcoming until, suddenly, it stopped, and he glanced down at where his hand laid inbetween he and Shane’s sleeping bags, and within it rested Shane hand. His fingers laced through Ryan’s fingers and Ryan slid his gaze to Shane’s face, half-smooshed into his pillow. Shane was watching him carefully.

 

“You were breathing kinda hard.” Shane said and his voice sounded distant, maybe sleepy, but his eyes were attentive. Ryan breathed in deeply, holding it for five beats, before letting it go. When he looked back at Shane, his vision was a little clearer.

 

“Thanks.” He whispered, and then, as if it was nothing at all, Shane lifted Ryan’s hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles there softly.

 

“No biggie, Bergara. Now go to sleep.”

 

Except Ryan couldn’t sleep now. It wasn’t his anxiety that was suddenly on overdrive, it was everything else. He could feel the hot blush on his face, and the tightness in his chest and something that felt like hope bursting from his stomach.

 

He stared at their still-entwined hands and waited for Shane to pull away, to roll over and inevitably pretend like this had never happened, but he didn’t. He stayed and when Ryan squeezed his hand, just a little, Shane squeezed back.

 

After a few moments, Shane’s eyes cracked open again. Ryan was still staring.

 

“You’re breathing hard again.” He said and it sounded like a question. Ryan shrugged and he could tell that his mouth was open and that he kept glancing at their hands. When Shane noticed he made a sort of apologetic huff and pulled his hand away, tucking it into his chest like it had gotten hurt. Ryan frowned and immediately moved to take it again and this time, pulled it close to his own chest, wrapping both of his hands around Shane’s.

 

“Don’t-” he started, shaking his head, “... it’s nice.”

 

Shane was staring now. His eyes were trained on Ryan’s face like he was evaluating something before he suddenly stood up and Ryan’s heart dropped. He had done something wrong, he was sure of it. He had gotten too open, too honest, and Shane was going to leave. He had scared away his partner in crime, the only person that he’d ever been able to stand for more than a couple of hours. He was a stupid fucking idiot, a piece of shit who forced himself on his friend, a complete waste-

 

the beep of the camera turning off again halted all of the thoughts in his head.

 

He listened as Shane walked back over to the sleeping bags, laying down carefully. He laid on his side and propped himself up on his elbow. He hadn’t gotten back in his sleeping back and he was watching Ryan intently. As if testing what was happening, Ryan reached out again and pressed his fingers against Shane’s.

 

This seemed to cause a chain reaction of Ryan’s fingers against Shane’s, Shane’s fingers gripping Ryan’s hand, Shane tugging Ryan’s arm, Ryan falling forward a little, Shane’s fingers suddenly against Ryan’s neck, and both leaning forward to kiss each other at the same time.

 

It was better than meds.

 

Not that Ryan thought that romantic relationships or romance in general is the cure for all mental illnesses. Certainly he still had anxiety and one meager kiss wasn’t going to stop this thing that had been plaguing him since he was a child and he was still going to go back to his psychiatrist after all of this and ask for his old dosage back, but still. In the moment, in the looming darkness of a seemingly haunted house, in the cold of a drafty room, in the midst of a series of panic attacks, the way that Shane was pressing into him and holding him as if he was something precious made everything just sort of  _ go away _ for the moment.

 

Maybe it was the shock.

 

They kissed for a solid half a minute before parting slowly and regretfully, as if they would have stayed like that forever if they could have. Shane still had a hand in Ryan’s hair and it felt  _ fantastic _ . Ryan realized that he had been furiously gripping Shane’s arm and he loosened his grip only to feel the flex of Shane’s muscles under his fingers and his heart fluttered just a little.

 

“Cool,” Shane said.

 

Ryan’s face twisted and, in a rush, the anxious thoughts came back, doubting everything that had just happened, everything that he was suddenly hoping for. It must have shown because Shane rushed forward again to press his forehead against Ryan’s, humming softly.

 

“No, no, sorry. It’s just that I really didn’t think… that would ever happen.” He said and in the darkness, Ryan thought he could pick up a quiver in his voice.

 

“You didn’t think I would kiss you?” He asked in a breath and Shane huffed out a laugh.

 

“No, I didn’t. Thought you were strictly a ladies man, if I’m being honest.”

 

Now it was Ryan’s turn to laugh.

 

“Well, if by ladies man, you mean ‘attracted to ladies, dudes and, more specifically, you’, then yeah. I’m a ladies man.” Ryan said once the giggles subsided. Shane looked shocked for a moment before his face melted into pure relief.

 

“Good lord, Bergara. Leaving me hung out to dry for… how long?”

 

Ryan shrugged minutely, trying not to make eye contact when he said, “A while. Maybe a year… and a half.”

 

Shane’s snort of disbelief made him look back and Shane’s face was so full of joy that Ryan couldn’t help but grin.

 

“Jesus, why the hell did I wait so long?”

 

“I don’t know, I thought I was being kinda obvious sometimes.”

 

“Coulda fooled me.”

 

“Not much of a superior detective mind then, eh Madej?” Ryan teased and it all just started slotting into place.

 

Shane chuckled, fingers contracting against Ryan’s scalp and the back of his neck. “To be fair, neither are you.”

 

Ryan frowned and those words panged in him a little painfully. It wasn’t his fault that nothing good ever seemed possible. It wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t actually imagine a positive outcome to any situation. Shane seemed to sense that because Ryan could feel the fingers in his hair gentle brushing down his head and against his neck before soothingly moving back up in a sort of massage. It was comforting.

 

“Sorry, sorry… I know. And I just want you to get that… if you feel like that again - ever, no matter what - if I’m there then you can tell me and I will do my best to help. I can’t promise that I’ll know what to do every time, but I’m here and I want to make things easier for you… if I can.”

 

Ryan sighed, reaching down to thread his fingers through Shane’s again, glancing down at them. “Thanks.” He said, and he truly meant it. He knew that the moment they left this house, the moment they separated, the thoughts would come back. The panic and the hyperventilation and the attacks would be right where he left them. But if Shane was willing to be there with him, hold his hand through it, then maybe it would be okay.

 

He was there, at least, holding his hand now, and when Ryan looked up at him, Shane was smiling in a small way, in a way that made the dark things in Ryan’s chest calm just a bit. They still squirmed in protest when he leaned forward to once again press his lips to Shane’s, but the sure way that Shane kissed back was one more step in proving them wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! I appreciate all comments and kudos on my work and if you would like to talk about it or anything else BFU related pls follow me n message me on tumblr! @boychickenboy.tumblr.c


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